Plain and Simple Quilt Shop

Tom and Sharon Reilly have created a welcoming atmosphere at Plain and Simple Quilt Shop in Apex, North Carolina. The quilt shop is housed in a 106-year-old farmhouse and encourages quilters to gather. “Making friends is so important,” Sharon says. “I want quilters to feel like my shop is their home away from home.”

Classes are held in one of the four farmhouse rooms. Classroom size is small, which means that the student-teacher ration is always low. Elegant But Easy, a quilt made using precut 2-1/2” strips, is one of the classes offered.

Sharon specializes in appliqué, which works well done in her favorite fabrics. “We have no brights, no batiks,” Sharon says. “Other shops do that well, so we decided to keep our focus on the old-timey look.”

Sharon’s mission is to make the shop a big part of the Apex community so people feel they belong. “Owning this shop fulfills my need to give back to the community and to create a place where people can come to talk, to laugh, and sometime to cry,” she says.